An Engineer's Quest
by Virodeil
Summary: *Caught Is Caught Is Cuddled Series* *The Avengers Film, AU* *Complete* – Tony Stark is used to odd things, whether he is the one who instigates them or becomes their victim. He has never, ever been asked to help solve a missing-child case, though.
1. An Interesting Introduction

An Engineer's Quest  
By Rey

**Tony Stark is used to odd things, whether he is the one who instigates them or becomes their victim. He has never, ever been asked to help solve a missing-child case, though.**

_(The first Avengers film, spiralling quite out of joint with just one small tweak, begun from slightly before it.__ Beware of mushy feelings and sweet cuddliness!__)_

1. An Interesting Introduction

Anthony Edward Stark – playboy billionaire and genius extraordinaire – loves his tech, his women, his boos, his tech, Pepper and Happy and maybe Rhodey, his tech, his money… and does he say his tech? Even now, he is ensconced comfortably in his garage turned part-lab in his Malibu mansion, in his comfiest old clothes, bobbing and humming away with the full-volume music from his awesome collection of rock songs, while tinkering with his newest Iron Man design. He has instructed JARVIS, his awesome AI, whose awesomeness is eclipsed only by the said AI's inventor, who is – _of course_ – one Tony Stark…. Well, that is, he has instructed J _not_ to admit _anybody_ in for audience with him for the duration of his hermitage in this garage-lab; not even the awesome Ms. Virginia "Pepper" Potts, and he tries not to think on how much her vengeance on him will hurt for this inconvenience.

Therefore, one would excuse him for… manly yelling out in surprise… when, as he wheels round on his battered-but-awesome office chair, his eyes land on _somebody_ standing oh so casually on the farthest corner of the garage-lab.

"J!" he demands to the room at large, denying whole-heartedly in the meantime that it sounds pretty much like a squawk produced by Alvin the Chipmunk. "Why didn't you tell me?"

And, "My apologies, sir," comes the response from the nearest loudspeaker, even as the volume of the music gets turned down without his say-so.

Tony scowls fiercely. – The not-so-awesome-anymore AI _dares_ to sound _baffled_, of all things. And who's given that insolent boy the command to turn down the volume of his precious, precious Black Sabbath?

He gets up from his chair, trains his bestest glare on the very, very uninvited guest, opens his mouth to berate the said uninvited guest before sending them away with blistering ears and maybe lots of pesky fines, and….

He closes his mouth again with a soft click of his teeth.

The intruder is not gorgeous, per se, but their diffrentness is _something_, and… and… and….

"Greetings, Mister Stark."

Tony shakes his head, but doesn't know – can't decide – what the movement signifies.

If he had only one word to describe the intruder, he would've picked "androgynous" as the first choice; because, yes, his short-circuited brain can't decide whether the said intruder is male or female; although, why in the world should he bother himself with the gender of a snooper?

His second choice would've been "intense." – Those green eyes!

His third would've been "huge;" although, to be fair, it's more like a slim person in the proportions of a giant than say, a body-builder kind of frame.

Although, _then again_, why would he think such a thought about such a person in such a situation?

And there are so many "although"s in his current vocabulary…. A real sign of short-circuiting, maybe?

He shakes his head again, and now notices how perturbed and… something else… the intruder looks beneath all that cool, dignified, closed-up bearing. "You…."

It's not often that his words fail him, and he tends to babble during periods of heightened emotions like now anyway, but it's nonetheless the fact that he can't even _think_ at present.

And the intruder uses the chance well.


	2. An Interesting Proposal

An Engineer's Quest  
By Rey

2\. An Interesting Proposal

Anthony Edward Stark _used to be_ an eloquent babbler, if he says so himself, in addition to being a charming, dapper, handsome guy with indestructible poise in _all_ situations, from the very dangerous – Pepper in a fine mood, for instance – to the very odd. He _used to be_ all those, because, right now, he has hit the proverbial rock bottom, in tandem with hitting the glass bottom of his whiskey bottle; and _that_, done in front of the uninvited guest.

All because of one measly statement, delivered so carefully but earnestly, in an awesome begging tone that doesn't sound like begging, by a person that carries themself like a monarch, _minus_ an uppity vibe but _plus_ one of a doting parent.

"Half of my firstborn has been lost to me since a long time ago. I knew that the child was alive only when they briefly died, a year prior to this point in time. I have managed to maintain my connection to them from that moment until now, with much difficulty, and it seems that they are somewhere… not so far away in this realm. I lost them as a newborn babe, but they must have grown much by now. If you would please, Mister Stark, find me my child and I shall do you a favour, as long as it does not harm them, me, mine, and all the realms – known and unknown. I need to see my child and safeguard them, even if they have found a better life elsewhere. A child should have never experienced dying or near-death situations."

Tony would actually like to be _that child_, even if he must briefly die to attain that privilege, and this notion wallops his inner workings flat better than even the twin deaths of his own parents, or the mysterious, jack-in-the-box appearance of this alien stranger. How _pathetic_. And _worse_, he can't even decide who or what the pathetic one is: himself, his parents' parenting, this situation, his unknown hope, or the intensity in which he hopes for it.

_And_, on a side note, as if he didn't have enough problems yet to lay him flat – _without_ any perks to it – for a long, long, long while, he must be wary of, as old-man Jarvis put it, "stranger danger;" because, this uninvited guest of his has belted out lots of nonsense _while_ keeping even more things secret _without_ bothering to make the fact unobvious. Who in this day and age are named Laufey, Loptr and Loki, anyway? And _that_ was from the introduction alone, _before_ that damned ludicrous, ridiculous, hilarious proposal was ever stated.

He knows he is completely done in when, before he can evade the intrusion, the stranger's fingers gently swipe at one cheek and come away wet.


	3. An Interesting Conundrum

An Engineer's Quest  
By Rey

3\. An Interesting Conundrum

Anybody who has ever known one Anthony Edward Stark would have never guessed that _regret_ is one of his greatest pet peeves. He'd rather live in the moment, after all, and abhors _anything_ that could weigh him down, including nostalgia. But it's true.

And he _does_ regret… this.

Why in all the universe did he even ever _think_ to make his favour _retrieving Captain America from the ice_, instead of any other – more useful – thing? Howard Stark is _dead_, and Howard Stark never deserved – or _deserves_, for that matter – to be pleased by him anyhow. So _why_ did he spend his precious _single_ favour from this apparently all-powerful individual for that dead man's worship of the missing icon?

Why did he _agree to help look for that child_ in the first place? – He has _no_ experience in any sort of search-and-rescue. He has _no_ idea where to start. He has _never_ even thought of dealing with a _child_ in any capacity.

And now, the ice-cube coffin that contains Captain America in all his ridiculous glory lies on the living-room floor, _minutes_ after the-stranger-who-calls-themself-Laufey vanished away to fulfil their end of the bargain. _And they have just claimed that Cap is __**still alive**__ despite being in the ice for __**decades**_.

If only he just needed to arrange a discreet meet-up between poor Aunt Peggy and the body of her long-lost beau for closure before she herself croaks.

If only he'd be able to get Laufey's kid as quickly and easily as they came up with this proof of how the universe seems to be intent on messing him up today.

If only–.

"Whoa!"

Busy moping and castigating himself and drinking himself to a good stupor, Tony wasn't aware that his now-semi-invited guest had vanished again; not until _now_, when they're back with a second, much less natural ice cube of a coffin, containing a much scruffier, much more fearsome figure with one metal arm instead of a metal shield.

They kind of, sort of, somewhat look tired, too. So maybe all the poofing in and out and whatever they did to bring home these two gigantic ice cubes aren't quite the proverbial walk in the park? A little comforting for the ego, that.

They're intense, unreadable stare isn't at all comforting, though, however drunk he is, which is _still_ not much by now, if he could still think these thoughts and make these observations and dread these near-future prospects.

Because somehow, in some way, it feels as if this semi-invited guest of his is being disappointed and disgusted and doubtful of him. Not new things in his life, those, but… but… but….

He blinks, and blinks, and blinks, and blinks again. The bottle of scotch he has been guzzling from has just been pried off of his fingers, and the well-stocked bar he's parked by is suddenly empty. –"Hey! Whaza…. Wha' dicha do… do for?"

And then, ice water soaks his entire person.

And, for once since his mum kicked the bucket and Aunt Peggy got alzheimer, he gets a severe talking-to, older-woman-style.

He may be a closet masochist, because he finds he _likes_ it. But there's for once a "you second-class peasant" tone in that not-so-womanly timbre, and he doesn't like it, so he tries to remedy it…

…By glomping the speaker and climbing them like a tree and pressing a loud kiss on one overly thin cheek, plus a heart-felt, "Stop it, Mom! I'm going! I'm going!"


	4. An Interesting Rarity

An Engineer's Quest  
By Rey

4\. An Interesting Rarity

It's… rare, pretty rare in fact, that one Anthony Edward Stark got _consulted_ for _anything_, in any way possible, expected demands to do things not included.

But, well, actually, this latest oddity happening in his life – so soon after the last one! – could fit in both categories, come to think of it again.

Agent delivered it, Peps handed it to him, and… well, _it_ is in his hand, now, and he's staring at two horribly familiar individuals portrayed on the photograph laid on the very top inside the folder, with the very nice background of recent ruins of a building. One is Nick Fury, who _hacked JARVIS_ just so that he could mess with Tony's _life_ and feelings towards Howard Stark, while the other….

The other–!

If the eyes were green; if the look were much _less_ fist-itchingly contemptuous; if the height were at least two feet taller, if not three; if the clothes were much more familiar to earth's style, if boringly bland and unfashionable….

Well, if this more manly version of the androgynous semi-invited guest calling themself Laufey were truly a child, instead of an adult, or at least an adolescent….

"I'll think about it," he tells Agent succinctly, referring to the other man's "offer" for him to join the riddiculously named Avengers Initiative and help SHIELD fight off an unwelcome guest to earth named "Loki" of all coincidences, then shoos this latest intruder to his house away.

"Pep," he tells his on-and-off girlfriend, secretary and CEO, when the said intruder is gone, "let's go out for dinner, come on."

He lays the contents of the folder neatly on a bench, with a post-it saying "**Wait for me**" tagged on the piece of photograph on the top of the pile, right beside the possible… sibling? Brother? Sister?… Of the missing child of his semi-invited guest. And then, off he goes with his aforementioned on-and-off girlfriend, secretary and CEO, to hopefully distance himself from all these weird business and the bagages that they carry, even for just a while.

Laufey could wait. Their firstborn twins could wait. The frozen Captain America could wait. The frozen dued whom Laufey thought could be Captain America _as well_ could wait. SHIELD could wait. The Avengers Initiative could wait. Saving the world could _also_ wait.

Tony is fit to burst, and the world won't like it if he _does_ indeed explode.

The Ten Rings didn't, anyhow.


	5. An 'Interesting' Turn

An Engineer's Quest  
By Rey

5\. An "Interesting" Turn

Being kidnapped _by SHIELD_ in the middle of a pleasant dinner with one's closest confidant, _just_ so that "Iron Man's owner" and "his tagalong" could have a _severely_ guided tour of the flying technological death-trap Fury calls the Helicarrier, threatens the world even more than the pompous words and rash acts of an unknown intruder do, even if the said unknown intruder has killed or caused the deaths of about eighty people since their first appearance.

SHIELD just doesn't know it.

Or maybe these uppity, high-handed, crass, shady, slimy, prickly people _do_ know it, with how so many agents _happen_ to loiter wherever the two kidnapees are led to, with hands in their suspiciously bulging pockets, and with eyes every so often locked on the two exhibits.

Well, in that case, this situation is even more unacceptable than before, and it is high time for Anthony Edward Stark to bring himself and his poor on-and-off girlfriend, secretary, CEO date home. Who knows, Laufey might be there and have drawn the same conclusion he has. Then he could return the missing kid – maybe plus this sibling of theirs? – to their adoring mummy, get sodding Captain America and whoever the other one is out of the ice, and be done with it all. He could be present here without being present anyway, so to say, since he's managed to let JARVIS into SHIELD's computer network right under Fury's nose.

It's far easier to say – to _think_, in this case – than to do, though. His every move to get out is fended off whether politely or not by various agents, and JARVIS' attempts to help the entrapped duo to get past electronically locked doors only serve to _nearly_ expose the well-meaning AI's unwelcome presence within SHIELD's computer network.

Peps is getting very, very afraid, although it's only the light in her eyes that shows it, and a frightened Pepper is a very, very ridiculous concept, on the face of which Tony doesn't know whether he'd like to laugh hysterically, hug her to death, or create another impromptu Iron Man suit to clad her in for protection, while he's busy punching these jailers with his own bare fists.

Worse, Fury, that _coward_, is somehow absent from the list of agents waylaying him, even though Agent Agent – ever calm and ever dapper in a boring business suit – has been among the throng several times. This is the second big, _big_ mark against that one-eyed pirate in Tony Stark's book.

And _worst_, some time after Agent has managed to chivvy him into a currently unused lab – by way of _chatting with Pepper_ – and present him with another copy of the folder he left in his Malibu house, JARVIS contacts him _blatantly_, via the nearby computer and a succinct statement of: Sir, Miss Laufey needs to see you."

And the screen of the previously dormant computer shows grief etched starkly but silently on the face Tony has begun to be familiar with. – Eyes wide but vacant but overly bright; mouth pursed into nonexistence but other facial muscles jumping with each rattling, heavy inhale of breath; and there's nothing but that for a long, _long_ moment.

"Hey, Mom?" Tony ventures out when a curious Pepper pokes discreetly at his back from her place half behind him. "Seen the folder already?"

A tight nod answers him, if nothing else.

"I take it that's your kid, then?"

Tears begin to break free, silently, and, heart twinging, Tony accepts it as an answer.

"Loptr or Loki?"

There's neither verbal nor gestural answer to be had. But in the next moment, after some sound of slow typing, a message pops up under the screen that says, "**Loptr. Help them please, Mister Stark. Somebody is controlling them. It is visible even from the image alone, if it had indeed not been tampered with before it arrived in your hand.**"

The missing child. The one SHIELD is _hunting_. And Tony is trapped in SHIELD's laire with Peps, whom these slimy gits aren't _at all_ hesitant to use to get him to comply.

"Fuck."


	6. Interesting Jailmates

An Engineer's Quest  
By Rey

6\. Interesting Jailmates

Fearing for a listening devise that JARVIS may have missed in his haste to protect his creator and boss plus date, the subsequent explanation – _and in-depth interrogation_ – demanded by the said date is conducted via a long, intense conversation typed on an unconnected, small, old-fashioned computer on a snug corner.

It is rare that one Anthony Edward Stark manages to convert his on-and-off girlfriend, secretary, CEO and current date to his perception and/or way of thinking and/or preference. But now he _does_, and he can't decide whether he should feel relieved, irked since the topic that _at last_ goes through isn't closely related to him, or smug, or all three of them. Regardless of all those, though, he has only one thought, one opinion on a righteously furious Pepper whose wrath is _not_ aimed at him: She is so very beautiful, and an overall _awesome_ badarse.

Fortunately or unfortunately, he doesn't get much time to admire the incondescent Pepper. Some time after the dorky written conversation has been concluded, while he is still pretending to fiddle with statistics and an application-making computer program in order to surreptitiously admire a hungry-lioness-in-a-small-cage Pepper, someone else is ushered into the lab

Well, well, well, his new jailmate turns out to be Bruce Banner; _the_ Bruce Banner, Hulk, _the_ green rage-monster.

_Awesome_!

He could let go of spying on Peps if he could get this one, yes he could!

"I've been admiring you for a _looong_ time, you know. Bruce Banner: the leading nuclear physisist, and, above all, the awesome green buddy who calls himself Hulk," he chirps, even as he ushers the flustered man to the computer set where he has been fiddling with the application-making program. He burbles about the mans works and escapades in equal measure, even as they idly muck about with the program, and bond with the said man over his quick understanding on what Loptr might be searching for in a university in Germany of all places.

Now he gets a _science-brother_!

Well, brothers are supposed to share with each other, aren't they? So, under Pepper's hawk-eyed attention, with Brucey hunching his shoulders all the while, with Tony occasionally poking his brand-new brother with an electric pen, the said brand-new brother reads the entire written conversation that Tony has previously saved in a USB drive and deleted from the computer where it has originally been conducted – all in that order, obviously.

Miraculously, although he does not react – except by a mild "Ow" – to the brief electric jabs, Brucey _does_ react when he has finished just half of the conversation.

Hulk growls, his green eyes – greener than Laufey's – flashing, his body rigid, his muscles straining Brucey's shirt.

"Come on, buddy." Tony puts his arm round his shoulders. "Not now. We'll get our chance to help them, 'kay? We've got to find the kid. Then you can meet somebody that's as tall as you! The mom's nice, y'know. We can share her, if you want. You're my science bro, after all. Pep can share her too!"

"Have you told 'the mom' that you'd like to call her Mom yet? I mean, _really_ call her Mom, that is," Peps pipes in from behind them, her voice soft and a little strained, but also rather amused and indulgent.

"Weeell, I was kinda drunk then," Tony laughs unashamedly. "Kissed her cheek and all! Can you believe it, Brucey? Y'like to kiss her too, Hulky? When she's your size, though! Wanna call her Mom too? What 'bout you, Pep?" He rambles on, and on, and on, and Brucey continues reading the whole sordid tale of selfishness, greed, loss, loyalty, war and survival displayed on the screen through mini-almost-Hulk's green eyes, on and on and on….

And then Pepper's impossibly soft handkerchief comes in contact with the skin under Tony's eyes, like a grasshopper hopping on the grass when he's still tiny and his world was only Jarvis the butler and his oft-absent mum and dad, and only then he becomes aware of how afire his eyeballs feel.


	7. An Interesting Feeling

An Engineer's Quest  
By Rey

7\. An Interesting Feeling

Peps refuses to be left behind when the tiny team that, among five including her, consists also of her on-and-of boyfriend, head of R&D, boss and current date, flies out to Stuttgart, Germany, to pick up the alien intruder who allegedly has killed eighty people and collapsed a secret SHIELD bunker. (The first and foremost science sibling of Anthony Edward Stark, one Bruce Banner, who is wholely Brucey and not Hulky at present, is the next member, followed by the young-looking woman who pretended to be Natalie Rushman the humble personal secretary, and capped off by a worried Agent Agent.) So, while Agent worries, and Miss Pretender surreptitiously looks about, and Brucey busies himself with a Starkpad full of archived e-papers, _The_ Anthony Edward Stark spends his time with his awesome on-and-off girlfriend, secretary, CEO and current date, chatting with Laufey, who has been convinced by JARVIS to stay in Stark Tower for the time being. Tony would have involved Brucey in it, but for Peps nudging his rib and giving him a _look_.

Well, come to think of it again, given the contents of their current conversation with the desperate mum, maybe it's indeed better for Brucey not to know about it all yet. Everyone in this flying contraption could be in mortal danger should Hulky get into another tantrumy mood. Tony himself feels _sick_ in all too many points of the conversation, and _that_ while he thinks Laufey still conceals much more from him and Peps.

Although, the real contents of the conversation aren't all that sicken him.

No. His own _reaction_ is what most sickens him. He may have told Peps and Brucey _all that_ in that lab-jail, but… but… well he _can't_ really call Laufey "Mom," can he? They're not really _just_ a woman for one; they must love Loptr and their twin too much to care about lil old Tony, for two; they're an alien monarch in _another planet entirely_, for three; they and Tony have known each other only for so short a time, for four, and….

Laufey magically sends a palm-sized crystalline ball to him _for Loptr_ for _when_ Tony manages to retrieve the kid, and _envy_ drowns him, scattering all other thoughts from his mind.

"Tony?" Peps nudges him again; softer now, more tentative. But the addressee can only shake his head and raise a hand to stem any oncoming question.

He knows he is being ridiculous. He knows he is being overly fanciful about his dreams – no, _imaginings_. But _still_, the mere thought of being _only_ the conduit for the mum and the kid to reunite, watching _just_ from the sidelines, being _left behind_ when they depart Earth, most likely _forever_….

He dons his Iron Man suit, ignoring all the questions thrown at him from everyone else in the modified fighter-and-passenger jet – the quinjet, as SHIELD names it. Accessing all the data JARVIS sends him privately is far easier and safer this way, and, likewise, he has an excuse to secrete the stone away in one of the securer-than-safety-deposit-box pockets littering the armour. He cannot hide from the _real_ reason of activating the armour prematurely, though, however _un_proud he is of it.

He needs a hiding place for his burning face.


	8. An Interesting Dispute

An Engineer's Quest  
By Rey

8\. An Interesting Dispute

The main square of the campus, just outside of its opera house, is filled with people – _kneeling_ people. And, with how they struggle, these people – opera goers and more, judging from their varied attires – don't take it well. They surround a thin, tallish somebody in a ludicrous getup of some green-and-black medieval clothing, topped up with some gaudy golden chainmail armour and… is that a _goat-horn helmet_?… but they're clearly the helpless party instead of the winning one.

And the orating someone amidst the gaudy display of power is sadly the one that _both_ Anthony Edward Stark and SHIELD have been searching for.

And most _un_fortunately, their opinions and preferences for action are in the extreme opposites of each other's, when regarding this particular target.

Miss Pretender wants to jump down, go behind the showcasing Loptr and strike… him? Her? Them?… down from behind. Agent Agent agrees with her.

Brucey and Peps _glare_, and Tony can't possibly decide whose evil look is the most badarse of all; because, while Brucey promises violence _towards the SHIELD agents_, Peps already _prepares_ for it.

Tony himself, caught in the middle in not just this particular, particularly visible tug of war, _dithers_. – Because, after all, his body knows very, very well that the best moment to procrastinate on an action is when the momentum spans only a split second, in an event that promises _lots_ of violence.

Oddly enough, what _at last_ propels him is Miss Pretender's _civil_ order for their target to cease playing with the natives – not her exact words, of course! – and surrender. But then again, if _she_ can be civil, maybe he doesn't have to fight for the custody of the not-so-little brat and return the latter to their fretting, fretful mum? The pushing point doesn't look so odd, seen in this light.

He still has to fight _to subdue the brat_, though, forget any custody war – and he _doesn't_ want to sound like an agrieved harpie of a widow in a child-custody case in court!

And after the umpteenth time being tossed away like some piece of rubbish _by the said brat_ using that infernal blue, glowy, tiny spear, he no longer has any patience for the endeavour, _whatsoever_.

So, as he scrambles back to his feet after the said umpteenth instance of being a human bowling pin, he fishes out the crystal the all-too-loving mum sent for the undeserving, overgrown kid, and presses it with some force into the hand of the said brat once he manages to get a hold of it. _Let her deal with her own brat. Not my job._`

But, contrary to his expectation, instead of spiriting the brat to Stark Tower – to the mum, to be exact – like a cutting right out of a Harry Potter film, the crystal, still attached to the very tips of his gauntleted fingers….

"Whoa!"


	9. An Interesting Development

An Engineer's Quest  
By Rey

9\. An Interesting Development

The thing Laufey sent for the kid _shrinks_, gradually, even as a screaming Loptr, still attached to it and to the flabbergasted Anthony Edward Stark, _shrinks right alongside it_. It's as if the crystal's actually some kind of living thing that likes to nest in a living body, or a huge lot of transformative power compressed into a solid form, or some kind of slow-acting magic spell trapped in a sphere, or… or… or… or….

Well, to be honest, he just _doesn't want to hear and see the kid scream_. And Loptr is _really_ a kid now – turning into a kid, rather, and the process looks so slow and painful, and the mum's a coward and maybe not so loving after all given their _absence_ here, and he wants to _shut it all off_, because it reminds him too much of Yinsen and Afghanistan and the Ten Rings and the Jericho Missile and fucking Obi and the shrapnel of his very weapon in his own chest and him nearly dead from the poisoning and Nick _toying with his life for fucking nothing_ and Howard Stark regarding him as a _creation_ and… and… and…!

The crystal vanishes. A little kid lies naked on the ground. Eight years old, or maybe nine, or maybe even seven; blank-faced, blank-eyed, open-mouthed. And somebody's tugging insistantly on his arm, feelable only because the said arm moves without him or JARVIS moving it.

"Tony! Come on! Let's go!"

…Oh. Pepper. That's just… Pepper. Safe. Nice.

But somebody's picking up the clothes that now don't fit the kid, and _trying to pick up the kid too_, and Tony can't allow it.

"Hey," he…. Well, he _tries_ to yell out, _sternly_, but what comes out is just a weak squawk.

"That's just Mister Banner, Tony. Don't you remember him?" Peps says, while tugging at his arm again, and this time Tony obeys her.

Okay…. Mister Banner…. Bruce, then, Brucey, and Hulky too, the new science brother.

He has a _brother_!

He wanted a mother, too, and a father, or both in one, but… but… but….

Brucey hefts the kid over one shoulder, opposite the bag that contains the kid's clothes _and that damned glowy tiny spear_, and the blank eyes, now green, stares sightlessly at him as the head lolls to the side, as if boneless.

As if the kid's _dead_.

Tony swallows, hard.

But he made a bargain with the mum….

"Mister Banner, please put the bag and the target on the ground, slowly," comes Miss Pretender's controlled, level voice, suddenly, _from behind him_, and that clinches it.

Loptr is _not_ simply a _target_. Tony is _not_ a mindless grunt or _just_ Iron Man. Brucey is _not_ a creature to be _used_ or _contained_ whenever SHIELD wants it. Pepper is _not_ a tool, strings to move _puppet-Tony_ about.

He shall have _words_ with the mum. _Definitely_. But for now….


	10. The Interesting Reunion

An Engineer's Quest  
By Rey

Author's notes: I hope that we all safe and the pandemic quickly dies down. Keep safe, folks. And if you've got spare good thoughts and prayers for me, regardless of your religion or if you have a religion to follow at all, please send them forth for me? It's unnerving, to suffer from my reoccurring stomach ulcer and a flu when the sympthoms, combined like this, are rather similar to the source of this pandemic… - Rey

Author's note (2): There are 2 more chapters to go, but as of now I've got only 1 more pre-written chapters left. Hopefully I can finish the last chapter soon.

10\. The Interesting Reunion

Working opposite SHIELD makes going home rather an adventure. But Tony won't be Anthony Edward Stark, genius, billionaire, hopefully ex-playboy, philanthropist, and Iron Man" if he baulks against adventures of any kind, will he?

He just wishes that he weren't sharing this particular adventure with one of his closest _and only_ friends, his new science bro, and a half-dead-looking little-kid version of Loptr, while he himself is still thrown aback and torn about what has just happened.

And while he needs to go back to his tower ASAP _without_ SHIELD sniffing what's so important to go back to that place for, _too_.

After all, however dickish the mum might be, he still owes the said mum his part of the bargain, and the mum still owes him a _good, __**truthful**_ explanation about what they made him _unknowingly_ do to _their own child_.

Not wanting to involve Stark International in this endeavour, he gets them away from Germany via a series of borrowed-without-permission cars. Then they go across Italy by hitchhiking on passing trucks after a sufficient disguise, courtesy of Brucey. The trip is topped up by a long, long ride in his personal submarine, which has been waiting in readiness under one of his safehouses in Venice.

While he _abhors_ being underwater for any length of time, because of any reason, by any means, after his totally involuntary stint in the caves of Afghanistan.

It's fortunate for the SHIELD fugitives that JARVIS has total control of the submarine, knows where to go and what to do, and can obscure their trip from prying electronic eyes. It's wholely _un_fortunate for the mum, though, Tony thinks, because the petrifying anxiety he feels all along the underwater trip just fuels his fury towards them _even more_.

But then, once they are parked deep under Stark Tower in a water tunnel leading from the sea, J suddenly says, in an urgent tone that breaks Tony out of his haze of fury and fear, "Sir, neither I, nor Dum-E, nor You, nor Butterfingers, and nor your Iron Man helpers, have been able to revive Miss Laufey."

"_Have been able_? _Revive_?" the beleaguered man stutters, squawking. His fury forgotten and his fear spiking into dread, he rushes out of the watery trap people call a submarine and up to his penthouse.

And there, he finds the skinny giant of a mum lying sprawled on the carpeting on the living-room, face down, _unmoving_, with some deep purplish red liquid leaking sluggishly out of their visible ear.

Stupidly, the only thing that he can say – or scream, repeatedly, rather – is, "MOM!" And the thing that he does next, instead of assessing the possible damage, is to frantically shake the skinny frame, in the childish hope of waking them up this way.

He doesn't stop, until a weak, claw-stiff hand tries to drag him down, and a pair of skin-and-bone arms envelop him in a loose, shaky embrace.

And, lying on his living-room floor amidst pools of alien blood marring his carpet, soon joined by a noodle-limp little kid, Anthony Edward Stark breaks down for the first time since he was nineteen and heard about the death of his mum – his _first_ mum.


	11. Interesting Methods

An Engineer's Quest  
By Rey

11\. Interesting Methods

There was an odd intensity in those unnaturally electric-blue eyes, some sort of vacantness mixed with concentration, accompanied with the rather slack and empty look on the face with not-so-healthy complexion. – Laufey points it out to everyone present, a little stumblingly, by help of the photo of the encounter between Nick Fury and Loptr, once they are mildly recovered from their own prior struggles and subsequent reunion with their… _child_.

It's not the only clue, they admit after Pepper presses for more details, finding it a little hard to find the evidence that would make it so compelling. Apparently, Loptr _died_ once, briefly, not long ago, and it caused all wards, disguises, spells etc that had been tied to the child's _life_ to lose their anchor, allowing the mum to _at last_ notice that they're _once_ alive… a little too late. Quite fortunately for Laufey's sanity, Loptr's back alive soon enough – `_Like a restarted computer,_` Tony thinks – and from then on they've been trackable by some sort of soul-bond.

It all sounds like a magical fantasy novel's plotline. And then Laufey recounts all that they have done to free Loptr, namely by battling mind-to-mind with a powerful, horrible entity _within Loptr's own mind as the battlefield_ before wrestling and yanking it out from there, and it sounds _even more_ 'out there'… but strangely _real_.

Well, Tony, _the_ genius billionaire and philanthropist extraordinaire Anthony Edward Stark, tries to focus on that, _just_ that, and _not_ on the fact that, past the jarring initial reunion, the mum's wholely focused on _just_ Loptr.

He listens raptly as they recount the vicious mental struggle they were involved in with whoever that had taken over Loptr's mind. He wonders aloud about the interesting type of energy they must have stored in the "spell sphere" they had sent him for Loptr prior to that. He absently slurps on the smoothie Dum-E has made for him _without_ budging his arse from the bit of carpeted floor beside the nest of cushions and blankets and pillows Pepper made for the mum. He even shares _that smoothie_ with them, _and they take it_, just so, in-between the recountings in that alarmingly weakened, wheeze-tinged voice.

But still, it's _not enough_.

`_How can I get their attention? Do I want to? Do I want __**this**__? Didn't I say no to this before, with compelling reasons at that? Will they be angry __**with me**__ if I steal their attention away from Loptr? Can I leave earth behind? Will I have to leave earth behind? Can I live with being a second fiddle to anybody, even a kid – __**an earth-invading kid**__?_`

Tony is never known for carefully thought-out, well-planned social interactions, regardless of the fretting. And, in the end, this trait wins out.

By the end of the mum's series of recountings and Q&A, with a second smoothie in hand, in a bigger glass with three straws poking out of it and two more pressed flush against it, he crawls _into_ the nest and presses himself right by them.

And, shockingly, a huge but skinny arm is _once more_ wrapped round him, and a small body is nestled against his front.

And neither Peps nor Brucey hesitate when he – _with the backing of the mum_ – beckons both to join _the __**three**__ of them_ in the nest.

Now, Anthony Edward Stark has a family once more.


	12. Epilogue – The Interesting Solution

An Engineer's Quest  
By Rey

Author's note: It's the epilogue, folks, and the last chapter. Thank you so much for taking this ride with me! - Rey

12\. The Interesting Solution

Anthony Edward Stark _Laufey-childe_ is very, very, very, very proud to have become one of the first humans to have ever _traversed the universe in a long-ranged spaceship_. He helped make this one himself, too!

Well, he's not so human anymore, in the technical sense, since he's been drinking Laufey's milk a few times everyday for a year already, as freaky and innuendo-like as it sounds, but _still_.

Better yet, Pepper's going along with him, both in the not-so-humanness and this trip, and Brucey likewise.

Even better, one of the technicians that Laufey sent him to build the spaceship – `_My mom! My mom! I've got a mom again!_` – managed to help encorporate JARVIS into the ship's system, with a more versatile option for an out-of-ship experience by way of an extreme-cold-resistant humanoid construct. And they supplied the raw metal to coat his bots so that he could bring them along as well, too!

His _whole_ family is sharing this marvellous experience.

`_We're off to see the cuddly giants!_`

His spirit isn't any lower when the ship touches down and he's greeted by the vista of ruins. Laufey did say that the palace – _their home_ – is still mostly ruins, with rebuilding efforts after the war with Asgard centuries ago focused on other, much more important places such as the farms and food processing units. But he's here, now, and this _planet's_ time does run much faster compared to Earth, and he does know a thing or ten about civil engineering and architecture, so by the end of this visit – and there'll be many, many more of such visits till he's spent too long on Earth to explain his lack of aging – his mum is going to live in a glorious home once more, tech will it.

His spirit bubbles over, in fact, when he at last sees Laufey in her natural form – an eighteen-feet, blue-skinned, white-marked, red-eyed giant – waiting for him and his entourage at the front entrance of the palace, with Loptr – in the same form – hanging on her back like a baby monkey.

They haven't seen each other directly like this for a year, after all.

"_HIIII MOOOM_!"

And how glad he is to be able to say that again. In the volume and exuberance that Maria Stark wouldn't tolerate, no less!

Loptr sends him a look that would be a loud eyeroll if he did that, but that's to be expected from a sibling, isn't it? At least from what people told him over the years. And now he got _lots_ of siblings, while being able to spend time here and on Earth, and he got to _travel casually in a spaceship which has been made in part by him_, too.

_Perfect_.


End file.
